Heard the Latest?
by
Chris DeeBruce and Selina aren’t the only Gothamites with private lives in between the
panels

12:22 AMHarvey Dent was once an ambitious politician. He fought for law &
order. He did it less from moral indignation than because a crusading district attorney in
a city the size of Gotham was the fast track to the Senate, the
Governor’s Mansion, perhaps even the White House. Nevertheless, he did
crusade for law and order; he was a friend and ally of the police, the
Batman, and leading citizens like Bruce Wayne (whose billions would come
in handy when Harvey made a bid for the Senate).

Two-Face was a bitter,
bloodthirsty, psychotic obsessed with chance, revenge, duality, and being
Harvey’s polar opposite in all things.

They agreed on nothing;
it was the nature of things. Black and white, Good and Evil, yin and
yang. They could not agree on anything. Hence the need for the coin to
settle their eternally opposed instincts.

They agreed on nothing—except a hatred for organized crime. In his mind(s), it was the mob war
between the Maroni and Falcone crime families that scarred his face and
split him into this freakish force of fate.

Tonight Two-Face flipped his coin because it
was what he had to do, but the outcome was predetermined: Good
side up: he would strike at evil by blowing up the warehouses along Pier
22 owned by the Maroni Family, depriving them of soldiers and whatever
guns, narcotics, or other resources were stored there. Bad side
up: he would machine gun every living thing at Pier 22, then enrich his
own operations with whatever guns, narcotics, or other resources the
Maronis had stored there.

12:45 AMPoison Ivy had given up her
attempts to reclaim Robinson Park where she had ruled so serenely during
No Man’s Land, but she still had hopes for making a home in the smaller but
less-popular Riverside Park. There were practically no people to force out,
which was a nice bonus. But there was a reason there were no people to force
out: the smell. Much as Ivy liked to believe she was a humanoid plant, she had
olfactory senses that mere shrubbery did not. And something happening upriver
was reacting with the exhaust in the air as it neared the city, creating a truly
revolting odor.

In her mind, it was concern
for her beloved plants that took her upriver to investigate the source of the
odor. The contaminant was most certainly coming down the river. And if it was in
the river, it could poison the more delicate grasses and foliage in her park. She told herself she didn’t want to live in a park of only crabgrass and
dandelion. The truth was, she didn’t want to live in a park that smelled like
a chicken farm build on a garbage dump next to a sewage treatment plant.

She tracked the source of the
odor to a warehouse where some mob boys—ah, that explained it—had set up
an illegal chemlab. It was probably intended to manufacture drugs most of
the time, but right now they were making explosives, hence the smell.

Before she could decide on a
course of action, a blade materialized at her throat. Then a hand pulled her
hair taut and a venomous voice hissed in her ear: “Make one peep and your hair
won’t be the only thing that’s red.”

Rather than resisting, she
allowed her head to sink back against the chest of her attacker, then she turned
her eyes upwards.

“Why hello, Harvey, it’s been a long time.”

2:10 AMBarbara yawned and stretched
her arms, considered brewing a fresh pot of coffee, then stopped. It was a quiet
night—maybe for once she’d opt for sleep instead of caffeine. One final
pass of the police-band turned up a domestic, a gang-related drive-by, and—what was this?
Just a scuffle… but at the Iceberg Redux, Penguin’s
nightclub.

She glanced at the OraCom
panel and allowed her finger to pause for a quarterbeat over Nightwing’s comlink before moving down and hitting the button below it:

“Robin. Oracle. You want to
check out a D.P. at the Iceberg? Probably nothing, but considering it’s
Penguin’s place…”

“Disturbing the peace?
Joker doesn’t get into barroom brawls; he kills people twenty and thirty at a time.”

Or sometimes he just shoots
them, severing their spinal column and condemning them to life in a wheelchair
as a mere waste product in some plot to torment Batman… but that was no
reason to snap at Tim, one of the genuinely nicest people to ever put on a cape.

“I’m sorry, kid. I’m
having a mood. Hey, have you heard the latest? Azrael caught up with Mad Hatter
last night—found him with some callgirl dressed up as the White Rabbit.”

..:: No! You’re shittin’
me. ::..

She heard his voice grow
soft, then there was a girlish giggle. He just told Spoiler. The girlish voice
said something, which Robin repeated into the link:

“He
does his job, kid. Which is what you should do. Check in after the Iceberg,
okay.”

..:: Alright, I’ll stop
picking on your new pet. Robin out. ::..

Barbara punched the button on
her console, cutting the link even though Robin had already done so. Children. She was dealing with children, she told herself, and that required patience. Jean Paul was painfully awkward with women. He’d had little contact with
them during his training, and in some respects he was naïve in ways no
crimefighter could afford to be naïve. If he had grown comfortable enough with
her to flirt a little, there was no harm in that. And if she chose to ignore the
signs that he’d made her the object of his first crush, well, that was her
business. It was certainly healthier to let it run its course than to coldly
shoot down his first real relationship with a woman, possibly scarring him for
life. Flirting and crushes were not the monumental affairs kids like Robin and
Spoiler seemed to think.

It wasn’t like they’d had
a tawdry one night stand like some people
who shall remain nameless, Mr. Grayson, you two-timing prick.

11:30 AMA Wednesday.
79 degrees.
Winds were from the NW at 10 mph.
Sunrise was at 6:35 AM, Venus was rising into Capricorn, The Dow opened at
10,290…
…and
Bruce Wayne was in a fantastic mood.

Batman’s takedown of a drug cartel had
unexpectedly exposed a gun-smuggling operation as well. Guns off
the street was a wonderful way to start a new day.

And Dick had called for no apparent reason
other than to be sociable.

Dick was taking rather more interest in “the
Selina Situation” than seemed necessary, but still, it was a good phone call—meaning both men had remained civil and both had actually said goodbye
before hanging up.

The look on Selina’s face
when he’d given her the second cat pin was nothing less than magical. And
tonight, she was to be his date. Not for some dry society affair either,
but for a genuine party. Lucius’s daughter and her husband moved into a new condo and
were having a housewarming for a few close friends.

And best of all, the budget
meeting Bruce had been dreading was over in record time. Last month it had dragged
on for four hours; today it wrapped up in under two. That left him a few hours with
nothing to do. There was no point in going home to the manor when he’d be
coming right back into town for the housewarming. He decided to drop in on
Selina.

He was remembering the
delightful outcome of his last surprise visit when he’d discovered her wrapped
in a bathtowel, snuck up behind her and…

…his good mood evaporated
as he rounded the corner. He spotted a vaguely familiar car parked near her
apartment: a green and white Dodge. License plate: Game
‘n’ ID, an anagram of Ed Nigma. The Riddler.

Rather than announcing
himself to the doorman as usual, Bruce went round to the service entrance and
slipped up the back stairs. He approached Selina’s door, still unsure what he
was planning to do or how he felt about it, when he heard voices inside that
made the decision for him. He slipped a small metallic disc from his pocket,
fastened it onto the door, and clipped a small speaker to his ear. The first
voice he heard was Selina’s—or Catwoman’s? No, it was Selina’s but
with a strange hushed intensity.

“I
said no, Eddie, and I meant it. This is absolutely none of your business.”

“’Lina, listen to me, you’re the only one
that’s close enough to tell him without—”

“Because
he should know. Because something like this should be handled ‘in the
family.’”

Selina sighed audibly. “Yeah, I guess it should. I hate that expression by the way. You lunatics are
not family.”

“Riddle me this, Pet: who
are the people you didn’t choose, can’t live with, can’t stand, can’t
sell for the spare parts, but can’t escape this strange, indefinable bond
of common somethingness?”

“Eddie,
seriously, those new herbs you’ve been taking? I think you should stop.”

A lifetime of Tibetan
breathing exercises enabled Bruce to stifle the snort that would have exposed
his eavesdropping. The conversation inside continued, but without the hushed
intensity. They were moving on to lighter topics:

“Paradoxes
and conundrums work for me,” Riddler insisted.

“Not
as well as you think. What happened to your eye anyway?”

“Nothing. Run-in with the
Junior Bat. Speaking of which, have you heard the latest? Remember the rumors a
couple months back about Huntress and Nightwing?”

“I
never put much stock in that one. She really doesn’t seem like his type.”

“Oh, it happened. I got it
from Hatter. And Hatter is never wrong about these things, the little shit.
Anyway, it turns out, Nightwing was on the rebound ‘cause his regular girl’s
taken up with that Azrael Angel-guy.”

“No
way.”

12:30 PM
Selina cancelled a lunchdate and went instead to a flat above the Jekyll and
Hyde Club on 22nd Street. Her host was pleased to see her, but curious about why
she’d come. They made small talk:

“You’re
kidding. BC and THE CADAVER? She could
do so much better. Why on earth?”

“We heard she wants to
distance herself from the Bat-clan. Time was she was thought of as a lot more
than a bat-groupie.”

“I
guess taking up with Ra’s would drive a wedge. Still… not an appealing
picture.”

He
noticed the exquisite set of pins she was wearing.

“Did
you wear those just for us, Selina?”

“Of
course.”

“What
a lovely bit of loot. Wherever did you pick them up?”

“Not
loot, they’re a gift.”

Harvey
Dent let out a low whistle.

“Quite
a gift. Who from?”

“Old
friend of yours: Bruce Wayne.”

He
winced.

“Selina, really. We know
he’s loaded, but what do you care? You can steal for yourself anything he
could buy you. Bruce goes through women like Kleenex. Why would you sign on for
that?”

“Harvey, there are very few
people in this world I get to say this to: Your love life is far too strange for
you to be giving me advice, ‘kay.”

“Two-shay.”

It was common knowledge on
both sides of the criminal divide that when Harvey Dent was District Attorney he
was briefly involved with a beautiful research chemist, Pamela Isley—now known
to be Poison Ivy—and that she’d seduced him with the intention of killing
him. It was not widely known that after he became Two-Face, they’d somehow
restarted the affair. Only a very few in the criminal community knew, and
absolutely no one in the legitimate world was aware. Today. Nobody in the
legitimate world was aware today, but that could all
change by tomorrow. They’d been indiscreet. They’d met, whether by design or
chance, near a mob warehouse with very special security cameras. There was a
videotape.

“Harvey,
look, that’s actually what I came to talk about.”

“My
love life? As you so delicately put it.”

“Yeah. Um, here’s the
thing. What you and Ivy do on your own time is really nobody else’s business. And games, even rough ones, well y’know, consenting adults and all that.”

The Two-Face side of his
personality proposed a dozen lewd comments about the pussycat pussyfooting
around. The Harvey side rejected each one. Selina was a friend. He didn’t want
to be “Big Bad Harv” with her. But he did wish she’d get to the point.

She did.

“There’s a tape, Harvey. I have it on good authority that a cousin of your very favorite mobster, Boss Maroni,
owns the warehouse where you were… ‘gardening’ last night. And word is: he
plans to make copies and sell them.”

DA
Dent held Two-Face’s rage back just long enough to ask: “Who’s the
source?”

“Penguin. Maroni’s people
approached him to distribute. Pengy told the Riddler and Eddie told me.”

The degree of Two-Face’s
rage may be gauged by the fact that he did not pause to flip his coin before
calling down the sting of two thousand scorpions on Maroni, on the Penguin, and
on anyone else involved in this monstrous outrage. This was not a matter for the
coin to decide because he was not “of two minds.” On the contrary, while
Two-Face conjured images of machine-gunning every Maroni in existence, Harvey
searched the annals of his Harvard education for appropriate epithets:

Come not within the measure of my
wrath.
—The Two Gentleman of Verona

Ne’er
had been read in story old,
Of maiden true betray’d for gold,
That loved, or was avenged, like me.
—Marmion. Canto ii

Which, if not
victory, is yet revenge.
—Paradise Lost. Book ii

And just for good measure:

I
don’t want to kill everyone. Just my enemies.
—The Godfather Part II

1:00 PM
A distinguished older gentleman, neatly but too-formally dressed for a suburban
park, scrutinized his reflection in the pond. He thought he was long past the
age where you make discoveries about yourself. Yet recent events—or rather,
the lack of recent events—were forcing him to face one of those revelations.

He, Alfred Pennyworth, was
every bit as much of a workaholic as his employer. It was just possible that the
example he’d set of tireless dedication had somehow contributed to Bruce’s
tendency to put the job above any personal interests.

Now that Bruce was finally
making a bit of a life for himself, Alfred found himself with time on his hands. Today, for instance, he’d finished his minimal housework by 11:00, pretended to
dust the cave until 11:30, and examined the contents of the refrigerator until
11:45, making a grocery list although there was no evening meal to prepare. Finally, at 12:05, he admitted defeat and took the afternoon off. He returned to
double-check he’d locked the back door no fewer than four times before taking
a walk around the Wayne property. Then, realizing it was a sad commentary to
actually remain on the grounds on his “time off,” he headed for this public
park.

He had a chance to relax, to
enjoy himself, to play. And here he was, sitting on a bench, with no idea in his
head about how to spend his free time.

1:15 PM
Silencing a momentary qualm, Selina flagged a cab and headed for the Iceberg
Redux,
the Penguin’s refurbished nightclub. She hadn’t seen him since No Man’s
Land, when his conduct had been less than laudable, even by the liberal standard
of Gotham City Rogues. Still, one couldn’t hold on to grudges like that
forever or no one in the city would be talking to each other.

She paid off the cab and
announced herself to the doorman. As she waited in an outer alcove, she told
herself she was not being a big softie. It
was not being “soft” to simply warn the poor ass that he’d just made
Two-Face’s list of Top Twenty People to Obliterate with a Double-Barrel Shotgun.

When she had talked to Harvey,
Selina thought she’d made it quite clear: Maroni’s people only approached
Oswald to distribute the tape. There was no evidence that he had agreed. But Harvey didn’t want to hear it. There was no reasoning with his Two-Face side
once Harvey had ‘left the building,’ as it were.

Evidently Pengy was willing
to pretend the whole No Man’s Land episode never happened. He waddled eagerly
towards the club dining room—perhaps with just a tad more waddle than usual. Selina took in the room appreciatively. The little bird had clearly spent a
bundle—the effect of a room interior carved out of a glacier was stunning—as was a conspicuous hole in the ice-effect behind the bar.

“What
happened there?” Selina asked.

“Oh, haven’t you heard?
There was a bit of a ruckus last night. You know Joker got himself thrown back
into Arkham last month… -Hic- …Well, it seems the Riddler took
advantage of his absence to put the moves on the lovely Miss Quinn. The Mad
Hatter was nabbed over the weekend, and when he got back to Arkham he told Joker
about Riddler and Harley. Joker broke out and came after Riddler last night. Found him sitting right there,” Oswald added pointing to a table “and threw him
over there -Hic-.”

Selina smiled. That explained
the black eye Eddie had unconvincingly attributed to a run-in with Robin.

“Psychos
in love,” she said out loud, “it’s rather sweet in a disturbing,
Kafkaesque way.”

Although he had no idea what
Kafkaesque meant, Penguin apparently found this hysterical. He laughed—too
loud and too long. Selina stared, then saw the significance of a half-dozen odd
details: “Oswald,” she asked pointedly, “are you drunk?”

3:10 PM
Tim was home from school. He powered up his desktop, and glanced at his e-mail—one in particular caught his eye, and he double-clicked on the subjectline:
Heard the latest?

Care
to confirm a story going around the squad room that they had to put The Mad
Hatter into solitary at Arkham because the other inmates were hounding him for
information from the outside? Don’t think I’ll ever look at Scarecrow the
same way now that I have this image of him under a hairdryer clicking his
tongue about Ross and Rachel. :)

btw,
I talked to the B-man this morning and wouldn’t you know it, he did
have the second pin. Gave it to her last night. Whew. Didn’t want to be on
the clean-up crew if that one blew up. Y’know, I was just trying to be a guy
and help him out in case he didn’t have a second pin, and what do I get in
return? A 10-minute lecture on how I should worryabout my own affairs.

Now what is that supposed to mean?
You don’t think he’s heard about me and Helena do you? It was nothing, and
it was months ago.

Tell
me what you know.

Tim
thought for a second about how Oracle was so quick to defend Azrael. He hit reply
and typed.

Bro,
ah, maybe B wasn’t talking about your end of it at all. It might be the other
side you should be worried about.

Hell,
what was the point in worrying him about a hunch… Tim hit delete and typed:

Don’t know about Hatter and Arkham, but I
was at the Iceberg last night and Penguin was drunk as a skunk—crying in his
beer that he’d borrowed big from the Maroni Family to rebuild the club, and
now they want some kind of ‘favor’ that’s gonna get him killed twice.

3:30 PM
Every rehearsal, every performance, and every casual meeting at the Bristol Heights Community Playhouse began with a certain amount of gossip among the
regulars, which had to crescendo in that actressy-squealing
sound before the business of the day could proceed.

“Heard the latest
from Sally?”

“No, what?”

“New guy came in
to ask about auditions?”

“That’s
news?”

“Now wait a minute. Sally says he’s
really classy and he has an actual English accent. A real one, not the
bad actor kind. And he’d been a real actor, a professional, in London!”

“Whoa, hot stuff!
What’s this guy look like anyway?”

“Sorry, I asked. He’s really old.”

“Bummer.”

“Sally figured
he’d want to, like, do Shakespeare or something. But no, he had the flyer from
the park.”

“The ones Janet
said nobody would read?”

“Will you get
over that?”

“So he’s
auditioning for How’s Your Father?”

“He’s
auditioning for How’s Your Father!”

Then both actresses were so overwhelmed with
excitement at the thought of sharing the stage with a real English actor, even
if he was old, they each made the girlish squealing sound that signaled
rehearsals were ready to begin.

4:30 PM
Officer Dick Grayson reported, as requested, to Detective Porpora of The
Multi-Jurisdictional Task Force against Organized Crime, an office he was
beginning to respect. Their failure to adopt any catchy acronyms
(MuJu-TaF-OrC ?) hinted that they might actually hope to accomplish something.

Dick had been
called in, he was told, in “an unofficial capacity,” because he was a former
resident of Gotham City. Could he, they asked, provide some information on one
of that city’s peculiar criminal characters, one Poison Ivy. Yes, they
realized, he was not a cop but a private citizen when he lived in Gotham, but
still, anything might be helpful. Did he know anything, anything at all, that
might not appear in the official files?

Dick maintained a poker face that would’ve
made his mentor proud as he thought over the many and varied details he knew
about Poison Ivy that were not in her official files: she dyed her hair, she was
a perfect size 6, she liked reggae music, when she got angry her pheromones
smelled like Lemon Pledge. None of this trivia could be relevant to Detective
Porpora’s investigation, even if Dick could concoct some reason why he would know such things.

“No, sir, I’m sorry,” Officer Grayson said
formally,
“I know nothing about those characters except what you’d find in the
newspapers. May I ask why you want to know?”

“A few hours ago, the FBI began losing the
signal on a number of mob wiretaps. When they investigated, they found some kind of
moldy moss is infesting every Maroni property in the tri-state area. Bad news
for us, but worse for them—it’s wreaking havoc on everything
electronic.”

“Whoa. Too
weird.”

“Well, thank you for coming in, Grayson. Oh,
as you’re from Gotham, did you hear the latest speculation about that Joker
escape they had? Seems his girlfriend, Harley Quinn, heh, is known to ‘team
up’ with this Poison Ivy character from time to time, and not necessarily for
a crime spree, if you know what I mean. Heh heh.”

Dick smiled politely. This man was his
superior, and he spent his days buried in reports of heinous mob wars. If it
brightened his day to gossip about women in tights, what was the harm?

Dick was quite certain, however, that the Joker
was not jealous about some imagined liaison between Poison Ivy & his
sidekick. Joker—and every other man on both sides of the criminal divide—had spent some considerable time speculating about (if not actively visualizing)
the relationship between Harley & Ivy.

6:15 PM
Dr. Harlene Quinzelle presented a convincing ID badge identifying her as Maude
Sinclaire, PhD to the nightclerk at Arkham Asylum. She signed in and walked
with confidence into the high-security wing. No one gave her a second glance.
Nightclerks at Arkham have a short lifespan. There was probably no one left
who could have recognized her from her brief incarceration here, or her even
briefer term on staff.

She gave a soft sigh as she passed the entrance
to her Puddin’s special cell—they still hadn’t cleaned all the blood off
the walls from his escape.

Finally, she came to the door she was looking
for, punched a code into the intercom panel, and spoke:

An unabashed voice replied: “I blew the
trumpet, I did indeed. The Knave of Hearts should know, don’t you think, if
the March Hare is stealing his tarts, don’t you think.”

Harley rolled her eyes. The Joker’s mad
ravings were so adorable. But Mad Hatter’s nonsensical doubletalk wasn’t
nearly so appealing. She purposely came before they distributed the evening meds
to avoid this bullshit.

“Nobody stole his tarts, Jervis. Riddler made
a pass and I was handling it. I’d never cheat on my Puddin’ with some other
funnyman, you know that. Everybody knows that! We should be together now that
he’s out, and instead he went and put Riddler through a wall—and who knows
what he’ll do to me.”

“It began with the tee. The tee? No, the tea!
Yes, that's right.
And the bread and butter was getting ever so thin. When, calloo callay, they all
came to say—”

“HEY!” Harley pounded on the intercom. Though she would giggle, prance, and cower with her Puddin’, Harley Quinn had
a fiery temper when provoked. “I’m not playing games, Jervis. I have a
grenade in my purse and I want to know WHAT YOU TOLD HIM and WHY YOU DID IT. If
I like the answers, I’ll leave it on this side of the door and break you out,
and if not, it goes on your side of the door. Understand… Calloo Callay?”

It got through. A far more reasonable voice
came through the intercom:

“They were so interested to know what was
going on outside, in the world of outside, don’t you know. So I told them
about the Iceberg, where all the world comes and goes, in a room carved from
ice…”

“Jervis.”

“…and I told who all was there, and that
you were there, and that Ed Nigma had his hand on your leg,” he finished in a
rhyme-free rush.

Harley let out an exasperated puff. That
was that.

“Why, Jervis! Why oh why oh why did you have to tell him?”

This last was a rhetorical question. She
wasn’t expecting an answer and was surprised at its vehemence when it came.

“BECAUSE
IT’S NOT FAIR! HE’S FREAKISH AS THE REST OF US! MORE! HE’S MORE OF A
FREAK THAN ANY OF US! AND HE FINDS THE ONE WOMAN IN ALL THE WORLD WILLING TO
PUT UP WITH HIM AND HIS TEMPERS AND HIS CACKLING—WHO ACTUALLY LOVES HIM
FOR IT! …AND HE TREATS YOU LIKE THAT! IT’S NOT FAIR! ITSNOTFAIR
ITSNOTFAIR!”

Harley backed away from the door, leaving the
Mad Hatter ranting about the unfairness of it all. They’d be bringing the
evening meds in a few minutes, and that might calm him.

7:00 PM
Alfred returned to the Playhouse for his audition, having prepared two
monologues as requested: one classic, Sir Andrew Aguecheek’s from
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and one
contemporary, Elyot Chase from Noel Coward’s Private
Lives.

“That’s refreshing,” said a mature but
feminine voice from the back of the house, “two comic monologues. Most actors
choose a tragedy for the Shakespeare.”

And so might Alfred have done at one time. But
he was doing this for a change, and he’d seen more than enough vows of honor and
vengeance in real life to enjoy reenacting it onstage. Naturally, he wouldn’t
explain this to the director. Instead, he said, “I was given to understand this
was a comedy for which I was auditioning.”

The figure at the back of the house came closer
to the stage, where Alfred could make out a petite woman with a length of neat
salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a becoming chignon. As she came closer, he
observed a face that may have once been pretty in the generic ingénue sense,
but had matured to assume a character and dignity far rarer in women her age
than mere prettiness is in girls of twenty.

“It is a comedy, in a manner of speaking,”
the woman replied, “The title page reads: ‘How’s Your Father, A
Comedy.’ Whenever I read that I can’t help but thinking ‘I’ll be the
judge of that, buddy.’ You understand it’s a small role, just a character
part really—some good lines, though, comparatively speaking.”

“I do understand. I was expecting to start small, get to know the company a little better.”

“That will take precisely ten minutes. Once
you’ve met one twenty-something actress/model/whatever, you’ve met them
all.”

Alfred was intrigued. The words were harsh, but,
unless he was mistaken, there was a begrudging affection in them. He seemed
to be signing on for a role with a director whose cynical style of expression
rivaled his own.

“You’ve trod
the boards professionally, I understand,” she remarked.

“That was many
years ago,” Alfred confirmed.

“Still, once an
actor, always an actor. I know, I was married to one forever.”

Alfred remembered the claustrophobic world of
the theatre well enough to know he would not need to ask if the past tense arose
from death or divorce. He would know the complete biographies of this director
and everyone else in the company by the end of the second rehearsal.

The woman paused. Alfred had the uncanny feeling he
had just been sized-up. She must’ve reached a favorable decision because she
continued…

“So you know the classics: Shakespeare and
Shaw and such. Reason I ask, once this silliness—How’s Your Father,
A Comedy—is done with, I’m putting together a little program to take round
the schools, scenes from the classics. Show ‘em early that it’s not hard to
understand. There’s more of sex and violence and soap opera in a Shakespeare
play than any Hollywood blockbuster. If you’re able to free up some time,
maybe we could talk about it some time after rehearsal.”

8:30 PM
Dick woke from the hour of deep meditation that substituted for a full night’s
sleep more often than he cared to admit. Every time he did it, he felt he was
turning into Bruce. Meditating instead of sleep. Wasn’t this his version of Batman’s famous:
I’m not hungry, Alfred, just leave the tray on the table. Bruce
wasted far more time bickering with Alfred than it would take to just eat the
damn sandwich. In the same way, Dick knew this meditation dodge was simply
borrowing against his body’s reserves, and he’d wind up sleeping twice as
long when he finally crashed. So why did he do it?

What kind of
numbskulls pretend they don’t need to eat and sleep? his inner voice
asked.

The kind
of numbskulls that don’t want to admit they’re human, came the answer. The kind of numbskulls
that don’t want to admit they’re mortal. The kind of numbskulls that don’t
want to die.

Oh man, sometimes he hated the part of his
brain that did that. It was the voice of reason, the voice of conscience, and it
sounded disconcertingly like Babs.

He should call her.

Tim’s non-answer to his
e-mail meant there probably was something up with Barbara—something to do
with Helena, no doubt. He could call and tell her about his meeting with
Detective Porpora. She’d see through it, of course; she was Oracle. She’d already know about Poison Ivy’s attacks on the Marconi family, and
she’d know he’d know she’d know. They were a knowing little circle, the
Bat-Family.

Better still, better than making up a dumb
transparent excuse, he should go into Gotham and see
her in person. Bludhaven could do without him for one night. He would go see
Barbara and later he would patrol with Robin and ferret out what he wasn’t
saying in that e-mail.

9:05 PM
Daniel Kuph stood an uneasy post at the front door at the Iceberg Lounge.

He’d reported for work to learn he’d been
promoted from dishwasher to head doorman—there was no doubt as to why.
The Joker’s visit last night had put his
predecessor into the hospital, along with the bartender. Daniel was a half head
taller than Bobby the busboy, so Daniel was promoted to doorman and Bobby was
promoted to bartender.

What’s more, the boss was drunk. Mr Cobblepot
had given explicit instructions not to let “him” in, but when Daniel asked
who, Mr Cobblepot merely slurred: “Who? Yshou need a descript-pt-shun? It’s
not like you can missst-take him for anybody else.”

That statement applied to almost everyone the
Penguin might have a beef with, from Batman to Bane. And since Daniel had no hope of
stopping any of the costumed lunatics of Gotham from going anywhere they pleased
(and no intention of trying), he figured he’d be much happier tending bar. The biggest risk there was being hit by an airborne lunatic caught playing
around with some other lunatic’s girlfriend.

10:05 PMNightwing tried to make his voice
sound casual and devoid of subtext as he linked in to Oracle to ask Robin’s
location.

:: Oracle, ‘Wing ::read: Barbara, how friggin’ long are you going to punish me for Helena, huh? What does a guy have
to do for pity’s sake?

:: I’m in Gotham unexpectedly. ::read: I saw him. I
saw him leaving your apartment just now. How could you do this? Why him—why
that cursed Azrael of all the people in the world? Don’t you know what it did
to me when Bruce gave him the mantle instead of me? Don’t you know what it
means that you pick him of all people to have some flirtation with? How can you
fucking do this to me?

:: Can you tell me where Robin is at? ::read: You can’t be
serious about this. Is this payback? Grown men and women have sex sometimes. It doesn’t mean it’s the start of the great American romance. Sometimes
it’s just an unpremeditated and meaningless roll in the hay, and we enjoyed it
very much.

..OO.. The Redbird’s parked at Mason and Fifth.
There’s a taco drive-thru near there he likes to take Spoiler. ..00..read: Being jealous
over Az is just a cheap excuse to get out of feeling guilty for sleeping with
Helena.

10:30 PM
Amanda Fox-Appleton pulled her father’s sleeve and motioned him into the
kitchen.

“Dad, tell me the truth. Did I screw up? Is
the party a flop? Mr. Wayne left kind of early.”

Lucius gave her hand a reassuring pat.

“Sweetie, you did fine. That was actually a
record for Bruce. He usually disappears before the second tray of canapés comes
round. You should see what his butler and I go through to keep him at company
shindigs long enough to satisfy the stockholders.”

11:45 PM
Robin slammed the door of one ambulance bound for the Arkham Infirmary as
Nightwing slammed the other. Between the two of them, they’d just captured
Joker, Two-Face, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn without any help from Batman. Granted they’d had a bit of help … from the Joker, Two-Face, Poison Ivy and
Harley Quinn.

Nightwing had just reached the RedBird when the
call came in: disturbing the peace at the Penguin’s club.

“Déjà vu,”
Robin remarked.

“What do you
mean?” Nightwing asked.

“Had one of these
last night.”

“You mean this is
the SECOND D.P. at the Iceberg REDUX in TWO DAYS?”

“Yeah, but that
doesn’t mean… well, he is on
the loose, isn’t he.”

By the time they reached the club, Daniel the
accommodating (and terrified) doorman practically ushered them in. There was
Two-Face, scarred side of his mouth gushing blood, arms wrapped around Joker’s
shoulder, ramming the dazed clown into the wall head first. Joker clutched a broken bottle and tried to stab his
assailant in the thigh while Harley Quinn jumped on his back yelling “Put my
Puddin’ down!”

While Nightwing watched the scene in wonder,
trying to decide how (and when) to intervene, Robin nudged him and pointed.
At a side table, Scarecrow sat before an impressive stack of cash with Hugo
Strange, Killer Croc, and some nameless nogoodniks huddled round.

Nightwing walked over to their table, neatly
sidestepping the scuffle as Ivy pulled Harley off Two-Face and Harley spun
around and slapped her.

‘Wing held out a
$50 bill and asked, “What’re the odds on Harley?”

Scarecrow looked up
at him suspiciously, “You want to place a bet?”

“What, my
money’s no good here?” Nightwing snarled.

Scarecrow looked at Hugo Strange, who shrugged. Scarecrow took the bill and muttered “3 to 1 on Blondie.” There was a slight
murmur of approval from the assembled rogues at this unexpectedly matey behavior
from the vigilantes.

“How’d this
start, anyway?” ‘Wing asked casually.

“Joker was after Harley for…something or
other…” Strange answered.

“Cheating with Riddler,” Croc put in.

“…and she went running to Pammy for
protection,” Scarecrow continued.

“Par for the course.”

“Pammy’s here with Two-Face with some axe
to grind against Penguin.”

“Hey, where is Penguin?”

“Passed out in back.”

“Joker caught up with them here.”

“Probably followed Harley.”

“He wasn’t surprised to see her with
Ivy…”

“…but Two-Face threw him…”

“He said Two-Face shouldn’t be allowed to
have a three-way.”

“Then he said maybe he didn’t consider it a
three-way—two of him + two girls.”

“That’s when Harvey decked him.”

“Okay, that’s all I need to hear,”
snapped Nightwing as he dove into the fray.

The four combatants were already battered, but
they had just enough fight left that ‘Wing managed to work out some of his
Oracle-frustrations.

11:59 PM
Catwoman heard a light swish on the rooftop behind her.
She turned to see a glimpse of dark disappearing behind a chimney: black
against black, knight against night. She’d been a little put out when he took
her back to her apartment after the party and kissed her goodnight. They both
knew he’d be patrolling in less than ten minutes. Why didn’t he invite her
along?

She smiled now, beginning to understand: he had
just invited her in the only way he could.

She joined him on his rooftop where he was just tuning in the police band. He
looked up with the lip-twitch that was his version of a smile: